I teleported all over the capital rooftop by rooftop until I caught a whiff of Roland's putrid aura.
The best way to kill a serpent is to start with it's head, thus I need to take down Roland. But how should I do it? Extortion? No.
"Any ideas," I asked Erythro.
"Kill him," Erythro plainly stated.
Kill him? Kill. The act of murder. I've killed so much so far, so what's one more life? Especially if it's a life that's brought so much pain to others.
Somewhere along the line I placed a certain value on life, if something or someone couldn't reach the bare minimum of that value, then-what am I thinking?
Does it really have to come to that?
Erythro consoled me. "I'm afraid so. I've seen Roland's type before, they don't change. Your other option would be to permanently disable him, but that's worse than death in my opinion. Death is a mercy that he doesn't deserve, but that's all you can give him."
This is so frustrating but Erythro's right in every way.
As Milo internally struggled he caught sight of a shadow slip under the front doors of a manor across the roof he had been perched on.
The shadow moved to unnaturally and he immediately knew what it was.
"Merlow..."
"Let's get moving." Erythro insisted.
"On it."
With that, Milo used his insane agility and crimson web to maneuver his way inside the manor.
Milo thought ahead and didn't want to simply teleport inside for fear that he would step straight into a trap.
Milo pushed open a window and crawled inside. His stealth was pretty high at this point, so masking his presence wasn't exactly an issue.
The father Milo proceeded into the manor, the stronger that aura grew.
"This place is disgusting, it's only filled with monuments of himself, not to mention how bad it reeks."
"We're getting close." Erythro claimed.
The trail eventually brought Milo to a staircase in the ground. The stench eminated from within.
It looks like the entry was supposed to have been blocked as a statue that looked to have fit was toppled over and shattered.
"Merlow must've gotten here before me." Milo thought.
"Well, it really doesn't matter, we probably have the same goal either way, but I need to be sure."
Milo descended down the staircase for what seemed like ages until he reached a dungeon type area.
"The hell is all this?" Milo thought to himself.
"It appears to be a dungeon." Erythro informed him.
"I know that, but why?"
"..." Erythro said nothing as they proceeded further.
After a while of walking the brickwalls that lined the passage ways turned into metal bars. Cells.
Milo peered inside every single one to check if anyone was inside. All of them were abandoned, but it was apparent that they were all occupied at some point in time.
Feces, vomit, blood, patches of hair, and piss could be found inside their respective cells.
"He was keeping people here to suffer."
"It would appear so, but these cells appear to be freshly abandoned..."
"Meaning he took them all somewhere."
"Bingo, we need to hurry."
Milo began flying through the corridors at a tremendous speed, still remembering to check each cell, but all of them were truly abandoned.
Eventually, Milo made his way to an open area, it looked kind of like the inside of a church, but with no chairs.
Still though, there was more Roland-themed aesthetic placement everywhere.
"This place is massive. I probably wouldn't be wrong to say that this guy thought of himself as a god." Milo thought.
In the middle of the room Milo could see a circle of bodies surrounding Roland who sat in the center of it all with his back turned to Milo.
Each with a trail of blood leading from the body to Roland him.
Stangely, the blood didn't seem to belong to any of the bodies, it belonged to Roland.
There were almost 20 people lying unconscious around him. All of which were young children or women.
"What in the ever living fu-"
"Every sign points to this being a demonic ritual. We need to stop him."
Milo readied himself from the shadows. Purification's his weakness, so if I speed blitz him and take him out swiftly.
Suddenly, Merlow dashed out of the shadows clad in darkness and was about to deliver a decisive blow to the back of Roland's head.
However, when Merlow got within inches of Roland, he was abruptly forced backward by a dark barrier of some sort.
Roland and the bodies seemed unaffected by it. Roland didn't even acknowledge Merlow.
Roland began smiling as he picked up a ritualistic dagger and drove it through his own heart.
He fell over limply and the sudden weight in the room lifted.
"Damnit!" Merlow yelled.
Dark orbs began rising out of the bodies the circled Roland and began entering his body.
Pretty soon a dark shell enveloped his body and started pulsating.
Something was wrong, it was as if Milo had seen this before, or maybe looking at it from a different angle.
"H-he's evolving. How do we stop him?"
"Yes, unfortunately, we can't interfere right now. The shell of evolution is quite unbreakable."
"So you're saying we have to sit here and wait for him to finish?"
"Precisely."
At this point Merlow had stood up and stood staring at the shell with his arms crossed.
Milo had a feeling something bad was going to happen soon so he started moving all of the bodies out of the room using telekinesis.
For whatever reason his spatial magic wasn't working, so he had to improvise.
After it was all said and done he stood beside Merlow and waited for the shell to hatch.
"Here to scold me again?" Merlow cynically questioned.
"Nope, I'm here for that thing," Milo said, giving the dark mass a nod.
Merlow wasn't the objective right now, but Milo knew he would have to stop him soon.
"Well you can leave, I've got this covered."
"I don't know that."
"Tch..."
At that moment a crack formed in the shell releasing an intense pressure that instantly put both of them on edge.
Then another and another, each crack causing more and more pressure to build up in the room.
"Prepare yourself Milo," Erythro instructed.
Milo powered up to maximum sensing the immenent danger they were in; Merlow did the same.
One last crack formed in the shell before it shattered pushing the two back a few meters.
As the darkness cleared, Roland was left standing in it's wake.
Aside from having a pale complexion, he looked relatively the same.
Roland began laughing maniacally as dark wings sprouted from his back. He began rising upward before dashing between the both of us.
We narrowly evaded the strike, but were left with small gashes in our obliques.
"He's fast!" Merlow shouted.
"No kidding." Milo said as he prepared to launch a fire ball at Roland.
But as he conjured the fire ball up it vanished from his grasp, Roland has also disappeared from sight.
"Tch, mana interference?" Milo thought.
"Behind you dumbass!"
Milo whipped around; Roland was now blasting a fire ball in his direction.
"You really have been a pain in my side, I can't wait to get rid of you!" Roland announced with enthusiasm.
Milo dodged out of the way, but the fire ball instantly turned to chase him. This pattern kept up until Milo realised that it wasn't going to stop.
"Try canceling it out." Erythro suggested.
Merlow wasn't just going to sit around in the side lines. He leaped at Roland, and delivered an axe kick to Roland's head.
Roland blocked Merlow with one arm and blasted him away without paying him much attention.
Before Merlow smashed into one of the nearby pillars, he regained his footing and tried maneuvering behind Roland.
Roland impaled Merlow through his stomach and prompty smashed him into the ground using his other.
"Should I take over?" Drelmoth suggested.
"No, I've got this." Merlow replied.
As Merlow tried to break Roland's defense, the firw ball relentlessly chased Milo.
Milo shot another fire ball to cancel it out, but somehow the pursuing fire ball absorbed the other without losing any momentum, adding to it's speed and size.
"What the?"
In a last ditch effort Milo opened a portal (something he hadn't thought to do before), and warped the fire ball to appeared from below Roland.
Roland looked down as he noticed this and was hit dead-center by the minature nova sphere.
"Looks like he dropped his guard." Merlow thought.
"Nope, it was still up." Roland said as he pointed the compressed blast at Merlow.
Shortly after a fiery blaze filled the room.